Word.ws English Dictionary

have the tiger by the tail

have the tiger by the tail verb: to be in a difficult or dangerous situation in which one ideally should not remain, but from which one cannot withdraw.

Verb

have the tiger by the tail (third-person singular simple present has the tiger by the tail, present participle having the tiger by the tail, simple past and past participle had the tiger by the tail)

  1. (idiomatic) To be in a difficult or dangerous situation in which one ideally should not remain, but from which one cannot withdraw.
    • "We have the tiger by the tail," Paul whispered. "We can't go down, can't land…and I don't think I can lift us out of this. We'll have to ride it out."1965 October 1, Frank Herbert, “Book II: Muad’Dib”, in Dune, Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Book Company; [Toronto], Ont.: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 225

Synonyms of have the tiger by the tail

Forms of have the tiger by the tail

third-person singular presenthas the tiger by the tail
present participlehaving the tiger by the tail
past participlehad the tiger by the tail
pasthad the tiger by the tail
alternative formhave a tiger by the tail

Questions about have the tiger by the tail

What does have the tiger by the tail mean?
Have the tiger by the tail means to be in a difficult or dangerous situation in which one ideally should not remain, but from which one cannot withdraw.
What part of speech is have the tiger by the tail?
Have the tiger by the tail is a verb.
What is the past tense of have the tiger by the tail?
The past tense of have the tiger by the tail is had the tiger by the tail.

Words near have the tiger by the tail in the dictionary

  1. have the pas of someone
  2. have the pleasure
  3. have the right time
  4. have the run of
  5. have the sun in one's eyes
  6. have the tiger by the tail
  7. have the time
  8. have the wind up
  9. have the wolf by the ear
  10. have the world by the bag
  11. have the world by the balls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have the tiger by the tail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-have the tiger by the tail.ogg.

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